A very early start this morning for a breakfast meeting (along with about 60 others!) with the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police and Andy Hawthorn of the Message Trust in Manchester Town Hall.

There is no doubt that the Message Trust do some fantastic work around Manchester (and they are expanding into other areas of the country) with their Eden Projects, partnerships and buses and their latest project “Shine Your Light” provides a real opportunity for young people to change the way they are perceived by, and in, the local community.

The stories that young people have of how their lives have been changed for the better by engaging with the Message Trust projects in Manchester are inspiring, I just wish that the Message Trust would work more openly with the mainstream denominations. But, a free breakfast is a free breakfast, especially as it turned out to be a full English breakfast – something I usually only get when I’m staying in a hotel!

Walking to the meeting at 07:30 (that’s how committed I am to free food) I passed a number of street sleepers. It had been a warm night in Manchester but I still wouldn’t have wanted to be in that position. I was, perhaps, a little more aware of them than I would normally have been because, when I usually go in to Manchester, it is at a time by which they have normally disappeared off the streets or, at least, are not still asleep in their sleeping bags/cardboard boxes – they are, for the most part, invisible, and, for the last 2 days, I’ve been looking after a homeless young person.

Now, let me tell you straight away that this has been ‘virtually’ looking after a homeless young person. I downloaded an application for my iPod called “iHobo“. It’s an application written by a charity called Depaul UK and your task is to look after a homeless young person for 3 days.

For want of a better analogy, it’s a little like having a virtual pet (remember Tamagochi?) and can be really intrusive at times. It also doesn’t help when your ‘iHobo’ tells you he needs money for a warm drink and then promptly spends it on drugs (I was quite surprised by this aspect as it seems to reinforce the view that all young homeless people are on drugs and I quickly lost sympathy with my hobo as he threw away the food and sleeping bag that I offerred him because he wanted drugs instead)

But it is a reminder that there are young people out on our streets who need looking after by charities like Depaul and Centrepoint … if you have the technology, download iHobo and give it a go. If nothing else, it will make street sleepers more visible to you.